That's exactly what my dd11 did with that same subtest. She gave answers, for example, that involved grafting together dissimilar species of trees and how that wasn't possible (one of the pics had a tree and she felt that the leaves didn't match the trunk and therefore indicated a tree graft which wouldn't be possible w/ the types of trees used in her estimation). The "correct" answers were much more obvious, at least to the typical person.
My dd is a 6th grader now. She has other issues (inattentive type ADD), but we have found that her divergent way of looking at things has been a real challenge in school. She's highly gifted in many ways (including IQ), but she is a very inconsistent performer in school and doesn't perform up to her potential. She is still a very good student (started a bit early and is subject accelerating in math), but I've always felt that it is more work for her than it should be.
One thing that seems to have helped her when dealing with divergence is to have her think about what techniques, formulas, approaches, etc. she has been explicitly taught in school. What have they asked you to do earlier in this chapter, on worksheets for this same material, etc.? If the technique she is using now doesn't align with something that they have used before, I've told her that it is unlikely to be what they want her to do now (at least at this juncture in her education).
As she gets into higher level math and not just pre-Algebra, Algebra I, etc., I may revisit with her the capacity to use a completely different approach than that which she's been taught, but for now there has been a lot more direct teaching of how to color inside the lines so she doesn't get penalized for her creative, divergent approaches.
Like the pp mentioned, it is somewhat sad, though.
